sketch
Americannoun
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a simply or hastily executed drawing or painting, especially a preliminary one, giving the essential features without the details.
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a rough design, plan, or draft, as of a book.
- Synonyms:
- outline
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a brief or hasty outline of facts, occurrences, etc..
a sketch of his life.
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a short, usually descriptive, essay, history, or story.
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a short play or slight dramatic performance, as one forming part of a vaudeville program.
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
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a rapid drawing or painting, often a study for subsequent elaboration
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a brief usually descriptive and informal essay or other literary composition
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a short play, often comic, forming part of a revue
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a short evocative piece of instrumental music, esp for piano
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any brief outline
verb
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to make a rough drawing (of)
-
to make a brief description of
Usage
What is a basic definition of sketch? A sketch is a drawing or painting that is usually made quickly and lacks finer details. Sketch is also used to mean to create a sketch of something. A sketch can also be a short dramatic performance. Sketch has a few other senses as a verb and a noun.Most artists begin with a sketch, or many sketches, before they work on what will be the final product, such as an oil painting. For example, cartoonists will often make a sketch of a new character without colors, shading, or detailed lines so they can get feedback before putting in too much effort. A painter may draw a sketch of landscape with colored pencils so they can figure out the best colors and shades that would go well together.
- Real-life examples: Many artists would be happy to draw a sketch of something for you if you pay them the right price. Police will often create a sketch of a suspect based on a witness’s description of them. You can find many early sketches of famous characters like Mickey Mouse and SpongeBob SquarePants on the internet.
- Used in a sentence: The artist made several sketches of the model before beginning his work on the elaborate portrait.
- Used in a sentence: I sketched a cat in my notebook during the boring lecture.
- Real-life examples: Saturday Night Live, The Kids in the Hall, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and Sesame Street are television programs that all use sketches.
- Used in a sentence: Chris Farley was in most of my favorite sketches from Saturday Night Live.
Related Words
See depict.
Other Word Forms
- resketch verb (used with object)
- sketchable adjective
- sketcher noun
- sketchingly adverb
- sketchlike adjective
- unsketched adjective
- well-sketched adjective
Etymology
Origin of sketch
1660–70; < Dutch schets (noun) ≪ Italian schizzo < Latin schedium extemporaneous poem, noun use of neuter of schedius extempore < Greek schédios
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Directed by Tristan Cook and opening in New York this weekend, the film breaks up its tour footage with the history of the quartet and briefly sketched portraits of its players.
The architect’s mischievous side comes through in countless sketches for his famous gargoyles, which achieve “both anatomical coherence and a sense of demonic vitality.”
It’s a pleasure to sit with Amy Tan as she sketches and watches her way to an obsession about the birds in her Marin County backyard.
From Los Angeles Times
The site’s imagery—replete with barrel curls, pink cowboy boots and milkmaid dresses—sketches an ideal of a modern conservative woman: a churchgoing, city-dwelling young mother who is employed and upwardly mobile.
The pronouncement was a dramatic contrast to Jackson’s 1984 hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live” and his memorable reading of “Green Eggs and Ham” during a 1991 appearance on the sketch variety series.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
